Grade 8 Unit 2
Grade: 8 Unit:2 Week: 4 Content: ELA Dates: 10/22-10/26/2012

Theme Essential Question:
How does the rural setting contribute to the overall meaning of the texts?

Essential Questions:
  1. What is the difference between formal and informal writing style?
  2. What are claims and counterclaims?
  3. What words are used to write arguments?
  4. How do our actions impact others? Can they cause a chain reaction?
  5. What are the best ways to resist injustice?

Focus Standards
  • R.I.8.2 Key Ideas and Details: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.
  • W.8.1 Text Types and Purposes: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
  • W.8.1.a Text Types and Purposes: Introduce claims(s), acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
  • W.8.1.b Text Types and Purposes: Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible, sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
  • W.8.1.c Text Types and Purposes: Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
  • W.8.1.d Text Types and Purposes: Establish and maintain a formal style.
  • W.8.1.e Text Types and Purposes: Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
  • S.L.8.1 Comprehension and Collaboration: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions(one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led)with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Ongoing Standards
  • R.L.8.1 Key Ideas and Details: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
  • R.L.8.2 Key Ideas and Details: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
  • R.L.8.4 Craft and Structure: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions.
  • R.I.8.1 Key Ideas and Details: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
  • R.I.8.3 Key Ideas and Details: Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories).
  • R.I.8.4 Craft and Structure: Determine the meaning of words, and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
  • R.I.8.5 Craft and Structure: Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
  • R.I.8.6 Craft and Structure: Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.
  • W.8.5 Production and Distribution of Writing: With some guidance and strong support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 8)
  • W.8.7 Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
  • W.8.9 Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
  • W.8.9.a Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new”.)
  • W.8.9.b Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced”).
  • S.L.8.1a Comprehension and Collaboration: Come to discussions prepared, having read or researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence on the topic, text, or issue to probe and reflect on ideas under discussion.
  • S.L.8.1b Comprehension and Collaboration: Follow rules for collegial discussions and decision-making, track progress toward specific goals and deadlines, and define individual roles as needed.
  • S.L.8.3 Comprehension and Collaboration: Delineate a speaker’s argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is introduced.
  • L.8.1.a Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives) in general and their function in particular sentences.
  • L.8.4.a Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of the word or phrase.
  • L.8.4.b Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., precede, recede, secede).

Objectives
  1. I can write an argument to support my claims or refute the counter claims using relevant evidence.
  2. I can use strategic word choice and a variation of sentence structures to construct a convincing argument.
  3. Write a variety of responses to literature, poetry, and informational text.



Cross curricular Standards
(insert standards here)

Objectives


Assessment
Product
1.Distribute an article, and have students cut out the evidence and sort into piles (strong, weak, relevant, insufficient, etc.)
2.Create a series of short sentences that could be connected with transition words. Students reorder, connect, and include transition words. Note the meaning change.
3.Develop a word wall to convey words used to write arguments.

Key Questions
  1. What is the difference between formal and informal writing style?
  2. How do you determine if evidence is strong, weak, relevant, or insufficient?
  3. What are some words used in writing an argument?

Observable Behaviors
  1. Cooperative Learning Groups
  2. Written response to “Mending Wall”.

Vocabulary
ELA
Claim
Counterclaim
Evidence
Relevance

Suggested Activities [see Legend to highlight MCO and HYS]
  • Distribute an article and have students cut out the evidence. Sort into piles labeled: strong, weak, relevant, and insufficient.
  • Create a series of short sentences that could be connected with transitional words.
  • Students re-order, connect and include a transition word. Note the change in meaning.
  • Develop a word wall to convey words used to write arguments.
  • Continue reading Summer of My German Soldier.
  • Create “Bookmarks” for Summer of My German Soldier. The bookmarks will be used to note key concepts from the text.
  • Respond to this line from the poem “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Why does this surface contradiction make sense, not only in the context of the poem, but also in daily life? How does the structure contribute to the meaning? Write responses to these questions in yor journal and share with a partner prior to class discussion. [HYS – CL, CQO]
  • Read Franklin Roosevelt’s “A Date Which Will Live in Infamy” speech. As you read through FDR’s speech, find at least 3 phrases that might explain why the US government chose to imprision Japanese-Americans. Write these in your notebook. Answer the following questions.
    • 1. When the United States entered the war, who was the President at that time. (first, middle and last name)
    • 2.Why did the United States enter WWII?
    • 3. What happened at Pearl Harbor?
    • 4. Write at least 5 adjectives that describe the time.
    • 5. What was the rationale for “isolating” the Japanese-Americans?
    • 6. How would have you coped, if you were isolated? (MCO – E/C, I/M, R/D)

Homework
Read for 30 minutes each evening from a self-selected book and complete a reading log.

Terminology for Teachers




Multicultural Concepts
Ethnicity/Culture | Immigration/Migration | Intercultural Competence | Socialization | Racism/Discrimination
High Yield Strategies
Similarities/Differences | Summarizing/Notetaking | Reinforcing/Recognition | Homework/Practice |
Non-Linguistic representation | Cooperative Learning | Objectives/Feedback |
Generating-Testing Hypothesis | Cues, Questions, Organizers








Resources





Resources

Professional Texts
  • Read, Write, Think
  • Thinkcentral.com
  • Teaching Channel.com
  • Step Up to Writing
  • Mechanically Inclined – Jeff Anderson
  • Tools for Teaching Content Literacy – Allen
  • MoreTools for Teaching Content Literacy - Allen
  • 6+1 Writing
  • TAG writing

Literary Texts
  • HMU(2)p.300-305
  • Summer of my German Soldiers by Bette Green
  • Warriner’s Handbook
  • HMU(Introducing the essentials)p.20-23 Writing Process Workshop
  • 8th grade Literature textbook

Informational Texts

Art, Music, and Media
  • List

Manipulatives
  • List

Games
  • List

Videos
  • List

Sight Words
  • List

Smartboard Lessons, Promethean Lessons
  • List

Other Activities, etc.


Click here for Word document. Click cancel if asked for a username and password.

English
Language
Arts


lessons-icon.png
Week 1
lessons-icon.png
Week 2
lessons-icon.png
Week 3
lessons-icon.png
Week 4
lessons-icon.png
Week 5
lessons-icon.png
Week 6
lessons-icon.png
Week 7
lessons-icon.png
Week 8
Math
Actions-insert-table-icon.png
Matrix

math.png
Week 1
math.png
Week 2
math.png
Week 3
math.png
Week 4
math.png
Week 5
math.png
Week 6
math.png
Week 7
math.png
Week 8
PCSSDlogo.JPG
Home K-2
PCSSDlogo.JPG
Home 3-6
PCSSDlogo.JPG
Home 6-8
Chalkboard.jpg
Unit 1
Chalkboard2.jpg
Unit 2
Chalkboard3.jpg
Unit 3
Chalkboard4.jpg
Unit 4
Chalkboard5.jpg
Unit 5
Chalkboard6.jpg
Unit 6